Nearly a century and a half ago, a catastrophe befell the citizens and visitors of an area in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Johnstown Flood of 1889 has become a tragic slice of American history. The events leave anyone who decides to explore this piece of history astonished by the engineering malpractice that led to the incident and the lack of justice that followed. On May 31,
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Monthly Poem October Halloween is for young and old, for both girls and boys, goblins and ghouls Spooking, creeping, scaring galore, do tricks or treats lay behind the door? From house to house and street to street, the bags get filled with everything sweet. With the tireless trek finally done, a belly filled with candy is a happy one! ~Leah Segal Past Monthly Poems
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As Easter approaches, many of us start thinking about our Easter dinners. When I was a kid, my grandmother always prepped our Easter ham by covering the outside of it with pineapple rings secured to it with toothpicks and putting a Maraschino cherry in the center of each ring and then studding it with whole cloves. She would then bake it in the oven with
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Land has always been valuable and the source of much conflict amongst people, and the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers made this area, and what would later become Pittsburgh, choice real estate and the site of much violence. Initially in the 1740s, when English trader, William Trent, first came to the area and set up a trading post at the headwaters of the
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“This is my dream job,” said Wendy Pardee, speaking about her role as president and CEO of The Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh. Pardee, who has been at helm of The Children’s Institute for the past three years, is a Pennsylvanian through and through. “I grew up in Punxsutawney. I have all the groundhog gear—hat, shirt, cookie cutters, you name it,” said Pardee. She stayed in
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With the future filled with so much uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a great chance that we will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in a completely different manner than we have ever before. While changing our customary ways of celebrating the holiday is an annoyance, many local businesses have endured financial hardship under the strain of the pandemic. So, in addition to celebrating the
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One of the first questions a small child asks is: Why? Whether it’s a need to make sense of a sometimes chaotic world or whether it’s simply a need to satisfy our curiosity, there‘s something innate in humans that we need know to the reasoning behind events or circumstances. We need to know why. The Mysterious Death of Dakota James That same desire to know
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Home to the likes of Comcast, The Hershey Company, Crayola, and Dick’s Sporting Goods, Pennsylvania is a fertile ground for businesses big and small. In Pittsburgh in particular, the very city that had just been included in the ’25 Best Cities for Jobs in 2018′ list, is becoming one of the most hospitable places for startups in the country. Small Biz Trends notes that this
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Pittsburgh’s First Christmas If those who first settled the city and lived at Fort Pitt in the 1750s got in a time machine and came forward to the future at Christmas, they’d be shocked at all the merriment and decorations. In 1758, Pittsburgh’s first Christmas was a particularly bleak one. Just one month earlier, the French had abandoned Fort Duquesne, burning it to the ground,
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It happened every day in parking lots all over Pittsburgh, unnoticed except for those involved in the exchange. It took place unbidden or without prompting, and it is what I liked to call the Aldi Quarter Courtesy. I don’t know if this is just a phenomenon in our area or if it happens in all Aldi’s parking lots, but if you don’t know what I’m
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